


Speculation

by Kit



Category: Circle of Magic - Fandom, Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-09-15
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit/pseuds/Kit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 1036KF and a mage has been scouring the country for four children-all very different and yet forced to work together, becoming strangely familiar in the process. Originally conceived for the au_switcheroo challenge on years back, but now very much its own thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lark, Rosethorn, Frostpine, Niko

**Magic in the Weaving: Speculation**

Kit Ryan, 2010 **  
**

* * *

 **One**

 _**T** _ _he Mire—by Mummer's Close; Summersea, Emelan:_

Dark eyes narrowed, Paraskeve Aygry peered at the bunched, knotted seam in front of her. She bit her lip. "It'll tear," she whispered to the woman who pressed in close to her small space in the street. "I won't be able to make it even."

"Lakik's _teeth,_ I could've had this done ten times over if I didn't have to watch you and your gawping. If it tears, you answer for it."

 _If she had any sense_ , thought the girl _, she'd unpick her own clothes!_ It was a hot morning in Summersea's Mire, and Paras' hands were shaking. Her legs, curled up under her in the stone niche she'd claimed as her own, ached fiercely. What she desperately wanted was a moment to stand and stretch; walk over to the public fountain on Potter's Lane and risk a drink, but that was impossible. If she moved, even for half a second, Paras knew that there would be a dozen other rag girls fighting over the precious space. She didn't dare try and fight them off, she'd lost one of her best needles up the arm of another girl the last time she'd had to. _And the wheezes'll start again if I run_ , the morose thought crept into her head, loathsome and familiar. She glared at the dingy fabric in her small hands. Useless, overworked and over-worn stuff, not good enough even for dusters.

Sighing, she spread the cloth over her knees; running a finger gently along the seam and fishing around in her pockets for a large enough needle, only to find that, suddenly, she didn't need one.

The fabric was parting in the wake of her finger, as if there hadn't been a seam there at all.

Paras blinked. She drew her finger back up again—slowly, very slowly—and the now almost-separate pieces of tired cotton-weave came together again. She could see tiny threads moving industriously, tickling her nose as she brought her face down close enough to touch her knees.

The threads, all as one, stopped when she did that. Paras felt as if they were standing to attention, like the soldiers she had seen once, by Gyongxe. They stood there and somehow it seemed as if they—as if they were _questioning_ her.

Paras whimpered and jerked back, hands flung apart to brace herself as her head cracked against the stone behind her. Hot, pricking lights flashed again and again behind her eyelids. Dimly, she could hear the old housewife swearing at her, and something that felt like a well-placed kick to the spot just under her ribcage.

"Fits now, is it? Useless trash!"

Paraskeve Aygry moaned as the woman walked away, leaving two pieces of cotton behind, where before there had been one.

* * *

 _**I** n_ _a farmstead in Anderran:_

Niva Magnusson knew her family were happy and proud that she had magic, and that was where all the trouble started.

It had first shown itself when she was nine, coaxing a rose to furl and unfurl with a gentle touch, to show that she grew them better than Elsa Nearsridge. That day proved that she could, because she had the greenness inside her, and after that there was talk of temples and education, and Mila's blessing, but only between harvest fairs, because her father always needed Niva to come along to those now, no matter what else was going on. Niva loved knowing why she always made things better on the farm, after that day. She loved the reason, and it excited her. She loved snatching lessons from every passing Dedicate on his or her way to Winding Circle. She prayed to the Green Man every day to let her grow until she was magnificent, wide and strong like growth itself.

Sometimes the other children laughed at her when she prayed, but after Niva broke Dolan Matheson's nose and his little finger they left her alone.

But most roses have thorns, and there were big ones here.

After Niva found out about her magic, the raiders came.

They smashed up houses and trampled land. Elsa's favourite nasturtium plant was crushed under heavy boots and skinny horses, until it was an orange smudge in the dirt, still faintly fragrant.

Elsa was found by Niva's doorstep, pathetic and small, but still too big to be a smudge. She was a body, the scars on her face reopened.

When they came for her, to 'take the little mage home', Niva found herself at the centre of family members and very angry runner beans.

By the end of it, and after Elsa, the death toll went as follows:

One brother.

Five raiders.

Three runner plants.

It had been nearly a year and Niva still remembered it, and cried when she thought no one was looking.

It was easy to say sorry to the runner beans, which didn't need words, but apologizing to her father was difficult, especially when Niva hated apologies and papa, even when wearing black for his oldest son, didn't think there was anything to be sorry for. "You're my pride, and the pride of the farm," he would say.

By the time Niva Magnusson was ten-years-old, and Longnight had left a bleak, thick carpet of cold over everything, apparently even snowing-in the pass to Olart, Niva's nightmares were choking her like weeds and she knew she had to leave.

By the time Midsummer came around again, all she and papa could do was argue.

"You are _not_ packing yourself off to a temple while you're under my roof, young lady."

"I'm not going to be under your roof, papa. That's something like the point!"

Papa's hands clenched and he rocked forward in his chair. "The temple was for when you were sixteen, if you wanted it—"

"—It was," Niva snapped. "But that was then. I need to go _now_."

"Now, now—why, now? Even if I accept for one instant that ten summers is old enough for any vocation, which, Niva-girl, it _isn't_ , I need you to be—"

"I am not your pet mage, papa!" This shrill announcement had both of them silent for a moment, and Niva breathless. "It's my magic, and I need to do more with it than win your fairs and bulk up the maize harvest. I need _out_. You show me off too much, you talk too much, if you ever stopped then maybe the rai—" Niva's speech ended in a rattling gasp as papa leapt from the chair and started to shake her. Not too hard, but certainly hard enough.

"You are _not_ ," he said, red-faced and furious, "too old, or too powerful, for me to pick you up and hang you by your ungrateful ankles in the well, my girl."

Suddenly, glass shattered.

"Oh, she could stop you if she tried hard enough, I'm sure."

There was a chubby, red-headed woman standing in the now-wide open doorway, and there were winds everywhere.

"Don't look now, farmer Magnusson," said the apparition, "But your creeper appears to be upset over something. Put Niva down, if you please."

Niva, released from her father's now slack grip, gasped as she saw the wreckage of three of the back windows. Thick, rope-like vines, belonging to the wisteria that had lived happily for years clinging to their house's east wall, had forced their way through and were now bare inches from papa's head and shoulders. One smaller tendril had wrapped around the strange newcomer's ankle—visible under dusty blue skirts kilted up in the heat—in what looked like a warning sort of way. The air was thick with the scent of blossom. It nearly made Niva's eyes water. It _had_ made the stranger's water, behind a pair of immaculate brass-rimmed spectacles; their lenses tinted an odd shade of blue.

"If you would be so kind as to call _off_ your defender, girl?"

Niva jumped, and glared at the woman. "I didn't know…" she trailed off. It was impossible to speak. Hesitant, she walked over and laid a hand on one of the larger vines. "Thank you," she whispered. "I think." Slowly, the plant retreated, glass tinkling as more of it fell. Niva was left shivering.

Papa's face was grey. "Who are you?" he demanded, though his voice was faint. The day was hot, heavy and still, but breezes seemed to be fluttering in the house, plucking at things, moving the redhead's skirts. It had large white streaks in it, her hair, Niva noticed. Dead white, though she seemed young for that, and it was dressed in a series of complicated braids.

"Y-you know our names," Niva said, proud that her voice only trembled a little, and glaring hard to counteract even that. "How?"

The woman smiled thinly. "I'm good at knowing things," she said. "My name is Tris Chandler. I am a mage from Lightsbridge."

Niva sniffed, trying to tear her eyes from the broken windows. "'Chandler' isn't a proper mage name."

"It _is_ my name, and names are important," said Tris Chandler. "Farmer Magnusson?"

Papa flinched, but then stepped forward. "I don't know what you mean by it, ma-am," he said. "Coming in here and—"

"—Niva must come with me to Winding Circle." Tris interrupted the man easily, stepping forward. "This shouldn't be so surprising, since it appears that your daughter has known this for quite a while."

"But…" Niva breathed, "Winding Circle, that's in Emelan! I wanted to go to—"

"You would find Sage Circle," began Tris, naming the main Living Circle Temple in Anderran, "less than able to fulfil your needs. Winding Circle will be better equipped." Briskly, the woman drew out a small, round token that shone oddly from around her neck, and some papers tied with ribbon. "My Mastery accreditation," she said to Papa, and she smiled again—a very dry smile. "I'm no raider or charlatan. Other things, but never those."

"Let me see," Niva snapped. The adults had forgotten she was in the room. " _I'm_ the one you're uprooting."

"Suspicious," Tris murmured. Was that mild approval in her light, sharp voice? Niva snatched at the papers.

"Careful, Niva," said Papa. He sounded shaken, overwhelmed. "You might rip them."

Niva shrugged, eyes already scanning the document. "If she's a mage worth her feed she'll have witched her papers." Her eyes widened. "What _aren't_ you a master of?" she asked, in a completely different tone of voice.

"Glassblowing," said Tris, straight-faced. "Now, as you've discovered that I _am_ 'worth my feed', it's time to pack your things. There's a storm brewing."

"What—now?"

"Yes, now. Pack light, your father can send things along later. I'll be waiting outside."

"But—I…"

"Come here a minute, Niva."

Reluctantly, Niva stepped forward, and the mage bent to speak in her ear. "Take the time to patch things up with your father, girl," she said, pulling away. "Family's important."

With that, Tris stepped outside, and Niva Magnusson was left staring.

* * *

 _**I** n_ _a village of Mbau, northeast of the Pebbled Sea:_

Kiam Ngaire ran.

Heat made the air shimmer, and fine red dust stuck to the sweat that poured from his lean, wiry body until it looked like paint. He was bare-foot, his hands were in tight fists by his sides and his stride was liquid and long. The low, makeshift huts he passed were a blur—he dodged goats easily, though his eyes were half-closed. His body moved forward, legs working, thumping the ground and his heart burnt in his chest, echoing in his spine and his thighs and his long, callused feet. Even with the burn, his lungs worked, drawing in air while he ignored the dust, his mouth dry, though there was blood in it. He had bitten his tongue.

He ran, and he ran, and he stopped only when it was dark and the night air turned cold, cooling his sweat and making his bones ache and feel brittle like an old woman's. He ran until he reached his home tent, and then fell to his knees, hands slapping the ground until he was prostrate in the dirt, shaking so hard his teeth rattled.

"Ey, moody one! Have a run today, did you?"

Kiam didn't look up, didn't try to answer so stupid a question. The _mchowni_ was standing over him. Even with his eyes full of dust, Kiam could see the man, with his straggled dirty-white beard and three teeth, his tiny head and even more wizened body—the strange, yellow-hot eyes that glowed with some unholy vigour. "Good, good," said the _mchowni_ , laying a bony hand on Kiam's equally bony shoulder. "Running makes you strong."

Kiam flinched, eyes shutting tighter. The _mchowni's_ hands were always cold, and made the strange brittleness in his bones feel worse. The old man was coughing now; he spat a gob of phlegm expertly to the ground just next to the boy. "You're a good boy, moody," he said, very quiet, before walking off.

The boy shuddered in disgust, and slowly got to his feet.

Ualin was waiting for him inside, smiling. "Long run, brother," she said, narrow brown eyes crinkled up at the corners as she laughed at him. She was sliding carved ebony beads up and into some of her thin braids, the same colour as her skin, and her brother's. Other braids, some hennaed until they were a dull red, others threaded through with copper beads or pieces of polished bone, were bundled up out of the way.

Kiam nodded, managing a smile of his own. "Father still in _shuq_?

Ualin nodded. "Still in _shuq_. You need a wash, Kiam. You're covered in dust and there's a handprint on you."

Kiam shrugged.

"Don't you shrug at me, moody one." Ualin stood slowly, walking over to the fire-pit to tend it. Her brother glared at her. "Don't call me that," he said. "The _mchowni_ calls me that."

"Wise man, our _mchowni_ ," murmured Ualin. Kiam watched as she knelt, leaning on her left hand and arm to compensate a leg that was a touch shorter and considerably weaker than the other. He had always marvelled that his sister had found so many ways to balance. "No more scowling," she said. "He's part of why we get to eat more than bean soup."

"You always make bean soup out to be the worst thing in the world. _I've_ eaten bean soup."

"Not like I have, you haven't, and pray that you never will."

Kiam sighed. Nothing made him feel less like being grateful than being told that he had to be so.

Ualin's face softened. "I know he's strange, Kiam," she said. "But he does help us. He found a husband for Shar, and he…he says he's found one for me."

"You?"

Ualin bit her lip. "I know it's hard to believe, little brother, but you don't have to look _so_ surprised."

"No! I mean, it's not that, Ualin—you're beautiful!" The boy knelt down by his sister and threw dusty arms around her waist, his cheek against her back. "I just…."

The young woman laughed, low in her throat. "You're sweet sometimes, moody."

Later, long after he had recovered from his display of affection, but not the news, Kiam sat outside the tent, drowsily listening to the voices of his parents and sisters inside. He had good ears, and could hear the _mchowni's_ hacking cough from his tent, too, and the sound of the village blacksmith at work. He wondered what the big man was working on, and whether he would need help with it later. Kiam was the smith's most ardent follower and nail-maker, and did not care who knew it. _He should be_ mchowni _,_ the boy thought, rubbing his temples to ease a sudden headache. _Even if he doesn't have '_ magic _' magic, his work is worth more than all that chanting._

One of the dogs started up, followed by another. Someone was heading toward the camp.

"You there, boy!"

Kiam blinked. Where there had been empty space before there was now a short, freckled white woman striding towards him, rust coloured skirts flapping in night air that had long gone still.

"Yes, you boy. I'm talking to you."

Kiam scowled, rising to his feet. At ten he was almost as tall as the stranger. "How'd you get past the dogs—the _mchowni's_ alert spells?"

The woman did not appear to appreciate the interrogation. "If you mean the wards, then hidden talents, she snapped. "I'm searching for a Kiam Ngaire."

" _I'm_ Kiam."

This made the woman draw herself up, and she managed to look down at him with a very long nose. "Young man," she said, icy. "One thing I do _not_ have is a sense of humour. Don't try me."

He spluttered at that. "I don't know who _you_ are, woman, but I'm Kiam, and you're on my father's property."

"I am Tris Chandler, and you _can't_ be Kiam." Tris crossed her arms over her chest, matching Kiam glare for glare. "Come here," she said at last.

"What?"

"I _said_ , boy who may or may not be Kiam Ngaire, 'come here'." With that, an arm shot out and she was holding him by the jaw with one hand. Kiam noted the incredible ugliness of her hands. They were small, square and, as he discovered to his disgust as a dry skin-fragment scraped his cheek, nail bitten. Then her cool grey eyes caught and held his, and Kiam forgot about her hands. He stared.

Tris let him go, and rubbed her eyes. She laughed, ruefully. "Dust-ridden hot air," she said, low. "Always clouds the vision."

Her listener shook his head, bewildered, as she went on. " _No_ care for timing, as always…ah, I suppose I'm in for a wait, then."

Kiam, nervous, touched his jaw. "What do you—?"

"—She-Demon!"

Both Kiam and the stranger jumped, as the _mchowni_ staggered into the open, pointing at Tris with a shaking finger. "Lightning witch—step away from her, Kiam."

Kiam could see that, as Tris looked at the _mchowni_ , her face was becoming redder and redder, and that the brisk breeze he had been feeling when near her was beginning to pick up.

"Ah," said Tris Chandler, voice flat. "So _this_ tickis the reason."

* * *

 _ **S** omewhere in the Osart mountains, Karang:_

Niko Smythe knew exactly what everyone was doing at his father's funeral, even though he was not there to see it.

Aunt Ariad was there, wearing faded silks and pretending that she had been back to their village during the twenty years that had passed since she had left it. _"Such a tragedy, my love. So sad."_

The tragedy was Niko's half-sister Liesel, with her two boy-children who were around his own age, ugly and competitive and mean.

Aunt Ariad was still speaking, now in hushed tones. _"Is there…anyone from_ her _family…will they be here?"_

" _Oh, no_ ," said Liesel, thickly. _"None of them. There aren't any, anyway, save Niklaren."_

" _Wretched boy! Did he_ really _…?"_

" _Ariad, he really did."_ Niko had often heard his sister sound miserable, or angry, but seldom both those things together. _"I won't have him in the house any more. He's packing now."_

Niko shuddered, and all he could see was his own room at the top of the house, and distant specks out the window. His head ached, it was easier than most other tricks, to concentrate and see things far away up close, even to hear them, but it made him feel sick and weak after too long. The boy's eyes burned, too, but for very different reasons.

He was packing. Liesel wouldn't have him in the house any more. The one thing Niko hated more than his father's house was the thought of being thrown out of it.

Niko's father was dead.

The awful thing was that Niko's father was dead when he should have been alive.

Niko knew that he Saw things, even if no one believed him. If he concentrated, he could see the far away. If he didn't think, the past. If he looked into, well, _anything_ for long enough—fire, water, glass, oil—he could see snatches of the present; random, disconnected things that had him staring for days, blinking away the after-images. His father had been a lesser mage, very excited to have someone who could scry for a son, but he always told Niko that he could not be seeing _all_ off the things he said he did, because all the seers he knew could only look through one part of time. Never past, present along with the close-seeing. He had to be lying somewhere, he had to be making something up—leave an old man some peace.

To all of Niko's family, his father's word was law. This was why Liesel had always looked after her brother, when she resented him because he was the product of a much younger woman who had taken the place of her own mother. Both mothers were dead now, of course, Niko's catching the childbed fever a week after his birth.

The father's word was law, and so when he believed in Niko's close-seeing, and brought down his battered spell books to teach him meditation, Liesel too had believed him, telling Niko that if she ever found he was spying on _her_ she would sell him for meat. Just as when his father voiced his misgivings about Niko having any other real scrying gift, Liesel laughed and called him a liar when Niko woke up screaming after reliving someone else's long-cold murder.

When father became sick and couldn't speak, Niko's world became lawless. He poured over the books his father had not fetched down for him, but while he learnt words like 'tintinnabulation' and something on the 'rudiments of magical projection', there was nothing in them on healing. All he could do was keep the old man clean, because Liesel, as he discovered first hand during these times, was never much good at that.

When Niko had a different sort of vision, he told her.

It was short, it was blurred, but Niko could make out a walking, living father leaning on his daughter, with a shape that he assumed to be himself reading in the background. Everything was hazy, but he knew that it was a week in the future. A future with father alive.

"He'll be all right, Liesel," he'd said. "He's going to live. I can see it!"

It showed how lawless their world had become, when Liesel gathered him up roughly and hugged him close, her eyes, black and heavily fringed like his own, over bright.

The two of them waited the week in truce, but then he died.

And that was the end of that.

Now, Niko was standing in the doorway, his skinny body bent under a pack full of all the books he could find.

Liesel, arms crossed, her face grimy with old tearstains, looked dully at him. "Did you pack food?"

He'd remembered an apple. "Yes, Liesel."

Something unreadable crossed her face, as she took in the flash of hatred that had come over his. "Well then," she said. "Nothing's keeping you."

She went back inside, and closed the door.

Niko shuddered, slowly walking away. "No, nothing."

He managed to walk about three miles feeling nothing but martyred anger, but by the fourth, with the mountain path moving steadily uphill, he regretted only packing that apple. Niko wasn't even sure where he was really going—Lightsbridge, probably. For years he had dreamed about that university where magic was fostered and brought to life, a place where masters were made, but Lightsbridge Mage University was at the foot of the Osart mountain range, and the only way anywhere even he could see was up.

 _I really should have brought more than one apple_ , he thought, eating it.

By the seventh mile it was long past dark and Niko was staggering. He found a ledge and settled under it, shivering and wincing at the thought of all the dirt and dust that would be over his clothes tomorrow. But he just had to sleep. "Curse it," he muttered, closing his eyes. "It's just not fair."

When Niko woke up he felt like something had died in his mouth, and there was a woman standing over him.

"Master Smythe?"

Niko groaned, trying to sit up. He hadn't taken the pack off. He could not _believe_ that he'd managed to fall asleep wearing that pack. "Hate that name," he mumbled. "M'mother's name."

"Hate it or no, it is yours?"

The woman's voice was insistent, and Niko felt power radiating off her, somehow. He sat up straighter. "It's mine," he said, clearer now. "Who exactly areyou?"

"Someone who was meant to find you before you got so hopelessly lost," she said. "I loathehiking."

"Do I have to say I'm sorry?"

The woman sniffed. "You're remarkably lively for someone who hasn't eaten in a day," she told him. "I'm Tris Chandler, since that's the real question you're asking." Niko watched while she fiddled with a cord around her neck, drawing out a token. He gasped. "Lightsbridge mage," she said.

"But…how is Tris Chandler a mage name?" Niko was quietly appalled. He'd always heard that mages could change their names at university. "How could anyone take you seriously?"

The air cooled noticeably as Tris smiled. "I think you will find that there's no other way to take me," she said. "Though in full, it's Trisana."

* * *

 _ **I** n_ _the Mire_

Paras felt sick. She couldn't move from her niche. She felt like a big thread tacked down—one that was _burning_. Other people had kicked her, stepped on her, probably smeared her body and dark, short curls with all sorts of muck, but they could not move her, and she couldn't move herself. The housewife's jeering was ringing in her ears. ' _Fits now, is it_?' Was it? Did she suffer fits, along with everything else?

Hot tears coursed down her gold-brown cheeks. With the wheezes, she was already crippled, good for naught but scraping a living picking at rags, thrown from the performing troupe she had known all her short life, and hitting these pox-ridden slums instead of a net. From the corner of her eye, now that she could see again, she looked at the small cloth body and yellow dress and veil of the _yaskedasu_ doll her mother had given her in Tharios two years ago. It was an expensive one—business had been good—with glittering embroidery all over the veil, forming tiny larks. It was like another lifetime. Mama and Da had died not long after the Tharios tour, both killed when a makeshift stadium had collapsed somewhere on an Ithocot island whose name she could never remember. After that, Paras hadn't much time for dolls. She'd kept working with the troupe because they were her family, and no one was as small and light and as flexible as she was. Time was, Paras could put her foot behind her ear and then stand on it.

But when the wheezes came, business wasn't doing so well, so the troupe had left her as soon as they could—they let her take the doll and her mother's sewing kit, though. They weren't _bad_ people, Paras knew that. It was her body that was bad, succumbing to a stupid, stupid—and now there were _fits_?

Paras didn't want to die, most days, but now she wished she could, just to get it over with.

"Move. Now. Get out of my way."

A crisp, educated voice was not something Paraskeve or anyone else was used to hearing in the Mire. Paras felt the crowds thinning around her, and cold wind. She couldn't look up, she was still sobbing, and she hurt too much, crying out as someone—the owner of the voice—laid a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder. "You need to get up, Paraskeve," said the voice, gruff.

"No." Paras was almost past being frightened. "Need this spot."

"You'll never need this spot again."

 _That_ startled her. "No!" She managed to sit, crying out again as she felt an odd tearing sensation. "Leave me alone," she said, unseeing. "Who are you? I don't care. I need this spot—it's mine!" She started to cough, high and thin, and with that her eyes opened wide. The cough went on and on, reverberating through her and in her head and bringing in the redness and the black edges to come over her sight. She clutched at her chest. "M-mine…" she managed, but whoever was trying to lure her away wasn't listening to her. Something warm and sweet was being forced into her mouth. She tried to spit, but a hand had grabbed her jaw, was pinching her nose. She could breathe even _less_ , now. Oh, Omini, she was going to die….

Paras swallowed, and the hands pulled back, the anguished cough eased.

A woman was kneeling on the cobbles, facing her, her freckled face flushed. She was wearing simple housewife clothes, but her glasses were tinted a strange colour and her white-streaked red hair was coiled and woven like a lady's. She had pale eyebrows, currently drawn low over light grey eyes. "…Have to see about that cough," she was saying.

"'scuse me?" Paras didn't recognize her own voice. It was croaky, like an old person's.

"My name's Tris Chandler," said the lady. "I've come to…" she was looking thoughtful. "To see if I can find someone to help that cough of yours."

 _"Never_."

"Maybe not," said Tris Chandler. "But where we're going there are many people who can try. Can you gather your things?"

Paras laughed, and then winced. "What things?"

"Well," Tris said. "I can see there's a doll there, and you're wearing a pack of needles."

The girl blushed, reaching out for the doll.

Tris stood and held out a small hand. "Come with me," she said.


	2. Lark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paras discovers that Dedicates can be terrible at keeping secrets.

_**W** ards of Yanna Healtouch, Winding Circle Temple, in Emelan_

It had not taken Paras long to discover that Tris Chandler had been right. Over the course of one week there had been many, many strange, serious adult people in four-colour robes coming over to her strange, too-clean bed in the Water Temple’s healing rooms. They came to poke and prod, to stick things in her and to make her swallow liquids that tasted of every imaginable nastiness, along with more of the sweet, sticky stuff that made her dizzy and sent her to sleep as it eased the tightness in her chest and throat.

They came to give her weakness a name: asthma, they called it, and it was ‘chronic’. All this apparently made her ‘asthmatic’, which Paras assumed was the opposite of acrobatic, because it made sense.

Tris came in to see her, to sit next to her bed with a book mostly, a thoughtful look in her peculiar eyes, but she had stopped three days back. Said she had to go to Mbau by Sunsday, which Paras knew was stupid, because no one could reach anywhere much past Olart in less than two days, and the girl was pretty sure the odd mage couldn’t fly. Paras tried hard not to feel abandoned. Feeling abandoned was stupid, if she went around thinking like that all day then her whole life would be spent weeping and wailing. Still, it was hard not to feel a little angry—what was she supposed to do now? Just stay here?—the healers or whomever they were didn’t seem keen to let Paras wander off—or was she to be thrown off again? Paras hadn’t told Tris about the fits, and she didn’t want to tell anyone else about them either. Life had become one big tangled knot of confusion, snarled all around her. Paras didn’t know how she could feel frightened and grateful and angry and sleepy and hungry and sick and bored silly all at once. It was enough to make her head pound.

Since Tris left, most of Paras’ time—when she was not having things stuck in her or fluids dripped down her gullet—was spent listening to all the whispering Water Dedicates. They seemed to have a secret, and they also seemed to be extremely stupid about keeping it, because they went around flushed and open-mouthed and incredibly obvious. They spent time huddled around a bed with curtains drawn all around it. The secret had to be in there, whatever it was.

“Winding Circle should be outside Summersea politics!”

That was one of the secret-keepers, a tall, pale woman in blue who often spent her time hovering, with one eye always trained to the bed.

“You’re suggesting we refuse to take in one of the sick, Withyfern?” This voice was lower and dryer, belonging, Paras thought, to the short dedicate with a black armband who gave her the sweet stuff most often, calling it poppy.

“Rapidspill—she was _poisoned_. His lordship…”

Rapidspill snorted. “He’s powerful, but he can’t touch her, or us, here. And if he could, that means he could hurt anyone anywhere.”

“Well,” Paras could only just hear Withyfern’s mumble. “She’s a disgusting patient.”

“Her great uncle is just the same, and if we _did_ turn over Lady Sandri…the lady, Fern, and then he _would_ have another attack and then we would have to deal with him, and Yanna would not guide us. Is that practical enough for you?”

The Dedicates were moving away; Paras couldn’t hear anything anymore. She was left with a clear view of the bed, and a burning desire to see who exactly was inside it. She had seen people poisoned before—there had been a time in Yanjing where a main well had gone foul, and she had seen people turn green and collapse in the streets—but she had always thought the rich-folk and ways of protecting themselves from things like that. Poor kids who ate some of their food first, to test, or wonderful magic charms that saved them from any worry. Maybe it was different when the rich-folk poisoned the rich-folk.

She stared hard at the curtains. They were well-oven cloth, a sort of clean white that made her eyes hurt. If she squinted, Paras could see all sorts of symbols moving in it. It was nothing like the cloth she knew, which was usually fine and frayed. If the curtains were made of that stuff then she could easily see the mysterious, ‘disgusting’ poisoned-person, she was sure.

Paras glared, and then shrugged. It was no use. _Even curtains are rich and stuck-up here_ , she thought mildly. _Not going to show me anything._

There was a ripping noise, and her eyes stung. Someone cried out.

Blinking, Paras tried to clear her vision. It seemed to take forever. She was shaking. It felt like another fit. She could here people running, shouting. _I’m blind_!

Paras wasn’t blind. The light-spots were fading, and when they had, she could see, even with her head all swimmy and Dedicates running about everywhere, that the bed-curtain facing her hand been torn right down the middle, and that there was a woman behind it.

She was half-sitting up and gasping, looking both confused and affronted. A pretty woman with a nose like a child’s, and wide, wide blue eyes, almost black in her spectre-face. Her cheeks were ghastly pale; lips tinged a purplish green; limp, mousy hair slipping from its plait. Paras had no way of telling her age, she was so strange a mixture of features, but the confused look had left her eyes now, and she was looking right at her, and Paras blushed.

“Was it you?”

Rapidspill blocked Paras’ view of the woman, standing over her. She looked worried and furious. The girl, feeling suddenly tired, had to giggle. “So many double-feelings here,” she said, and her voice sounded small.

“Was it _you_?”

Paras whimpered, trying to bring a heavy hand up to cover her eyes.

“Answer me, girl,” the Dedicate snapped. “That was the—”

“—Shouting at little girls, Dedicate?”

The room went still. A tall, heavy man was standing behind Rapidspill, and he wore a different habit to everyone else. No matter how hard Paras squinted she couldn’t tell its colour. The man looked like he was from Yanjing, with a neat-clipped beard and his shiny black hair clubbed like her father had worn his sometimes. Paras didn’t know how he did it, but he seemed to be looking sternly at Rapidspill and smiling at her, all whilst wearing the same still face.

“Honoured Gorse,” the other woman whispered, pale. “She was…”

“She has a name, Dedicate,” said Honoured Gorse, whoever he was. He gave a real, physical smile to Paras. “Don’t you, little Paraskeve Aygry.”

Paras had become used to strangers using her name without warning, but Rapidspill was startled. “How did you…”

“I know everyone who is in my temple,” he answered. He spoke with a thick accent, but his words were precise and there was something very serious in his eyes. “We will talk again soon, little bird.”

The girl half-laughed. ‘Little bird’—was that meant to be _her_?

Gorse nodded. “Much better,” he said, dismissing Rapidspill with a glance and turning around to face the other bed, the tear in the curtain hidden by his bulk.

“This situation does not suit you, my dear,” he rumbled, and Paras strained hard to hear the lady’s answer.

“Few do,” she said, sounding tired. “Who was that girl?”

“Someone I think you will meet when you are feeling better,” Gorse answered, gentle. Paras gasped, and listened for more.

The lady was laughing. “When I’m ‘feeling better’. Of course.” There was a sniffling sound. “This is dreadfully tiresome. I am in your debt, Honoured Gorse, but…” her speech ended in a frustrated, ‘oh, I _hate_ this.’

“There is no debt,” said Gorse. “You are sick and frightened.”

“A curse to Franzen,” came the lady’s breathless but impassioned cry. Paras was curious, this was the second time she had heard that name.

“As head of Winding Circle,” Gorse murmured, “I cannot condone curses, my lady, but I can offer sympathy for them, perhaps. And say that perhaps a change would benefit your health.”

“A…a change?”

Paras could see Gorse move as he nodded. “I have not been a healer for many years, Lady Sandrilene,” he said. “But I feel sure that some time spent with Dedicate Briarmoss would be well spent time. I shall arrange for a litter—”

“I can walk, Honoured Gorse!”

“A litter to be sent _behind_ you, my lady.”

Another sniff. “If you insist. And I really must see that girl, Gorse.”

“When the both of you have recovered, you will see each other,” he said, and Paraskeve was not sure to whom this remark was addressed.  


* * *

  
The lady—Sandrilene—was taken away, and Paras slept long. When she woke even the tips of her hair felt like an ache, and the large Honoured Gorse was standing to the side of her bed holding a streaming tray.

“You are awake,” he said. “Good. It is time to be eating.”

Paras’ stomach growled in response, and she felt her cheeks go pink.

Gorse laughed, setting the tray on a small table and helping her sit up properly, bolstered by pillows. “No one starves in here, little Paraskeve. I insist upon it and Dedicate Moonstream acts upon it. Eat up now,” he told her, fetching the tray again and balancing it across her lap. “Moonstream’s cooking does wonders for the sick.”

Closing her eyes, Paras dipped her spoon into the bowl of broth that sat in front of her, and brought it to her lips. Cinnamon seemed to explode in her mouth. She sneezed.

Gorse was laughing again. “Good, good!” he said. “You will feel better soon. It seems you have not been a well girl. Asthma can be a frightening thing.”

Paras took another spoonful to hide her embarrassment. “I…I have fits, ‘long with the wheezes.” she whispered. She had no idea what was in this broth, but the man who had given it to her was looking at her in a way that made deceiving seem like a fairly stupid thing to do.

A large, clean hand rested on her forehead, and Paras could smell fennel and roasting garlic and hot oil. “Fits, is it?”

Paras shuddered, and then stiffened, as Gorse took his hand away and looked at her thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

“But…I keep on…”

“You have something very different, which you will learn about later, once you get out of here,” he said. “Little birds need light and air.”

Hope was constricting her throat. “The lady said…”

“Oh-ho—listening in, were you?” Paras expected a glare, but he was smiling. “You will see her when she’s a little better, as she really will insist,” he said. “But for now, I think I’ll see you settled somewhere. Perhaps the Earth Temple—or Air. We will see.”

“But…I will see her?”

Gorse grinned. “As I said—she really _will_ insist.”


	3. Frostpine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tris's presence in Mbau is deeply unsettling to Kiam.

The Lightening Witch was still with them after three days.

Kiam didn't know what to make of her. She just arrived and glared; she was given a place in a tent, and sat with his family at mealtimes. The air was strange, tense with something that felt almost like embarrassment, or worse, shame. Kiam's father avoided the woman; his mother could never look her in the eye. Ualin smiled and gave out more than her share of politeness, but that was just Ualin, she was always like that, even to the _mchowni_.

The _mchowni_ 's reaction to Tris Chandler was another thing that Kiam found confusing. He scuttled and flinched, crying 'demon!' and, 'witch' every time they crossed paths—which was often, Kiam was sure that Tris was going out of her way to provoke the old man—but there was no awesome display of power or wrath. He would not throw her out of the village. The way he coughed and shook and shuddered, Kiam almost thought he _could_ not, even though he knew the evil old man had too much power for that. It was hot and erratic and highly dangerous. Kiam had seen it melt things into puddles; burn things up. It would be a tough match, but the _mchowni_ would match this stranger, who hadn't been giving off any lighting that the boy could see. She stared hard at things, yes, and there were odd winds, but a furious glare or far-off expression wouldn't win many fights.

This was another uncomfortable new thing about Tris Chandler. Kiam never thought that he would back the _mchowni_ in _anything_.

Tris walked around looking at people, mostly; her freckled, long-nosed head tilted to the side. She turned on Kiam a lot, bursting out with nonsense like, "Up in the mountains! I should be halfway to Karang by now."

"Where's Karang?" he had asked.

"Very far from here. It'll take me months."

Her sharp, bad-tempered tone and rigid hands-on-plump-hips stance was always infuriating. "Why don't you just go?"

Ualin, who had been walking with them, poked her brother.

"So rude," she'd admonished him. " _Mchowni_ Tris probably has reasons to be here."

"She's no _mchowni_ ," he muttered, watching as Tris stopped to fix her unnatural eyes on the equally unnatural figure of the real _mchowni_ , who promptly made a sign against evil and spat green nastiness in their direction. Tris had produced a noise that sounded like, 'hrumph!'

"What are you trying to do, _kill_ him?" Kiam had stared at her, laughing and incredulous. "Wait for him to die? You'll be here a long time, lady."

Tris had turned her glare onto _him_ and told him nothing, though there was another sort of odd look in her eyes that was almost like pity.

Kiam didn't want any of this strangeness to be connected to him. He left off questioning and stepped into his favourite world, full of the sort of complicated that could eventually be _resolved_. Complicated with answers. The blacksmith's forge.

Now he was spending slow time fixing one of the bellows, one that had ruptured with age. The smith wasn't in, but he was long used to Kiam coming in and doing odd jobs. The boy relished the atmosphere of the shop—all the smells, even the noise interested him, entering his blood and pounding in him, just like when he ran.

Smiling a little, Kiam walked over to the tool-rack to fetch the pliers.

* * *

The _mchowni_ shuddered in his tent.

He had lived a long time. This village had grandparents that remembered him: times were always hard enough for one family to sacrifice a small part of their life to extend the rest of it, through his guidance. He had been farmer, healer, carpenter, statesman—all of the things the different streams of magic had whispered he should be. The Ngaire boy had kept him warm for years. The earth was redder, richer to him. Secrets yielded up as easy gifts, metal-strong and deep and sharp. No would-be apprentice could touch him. No village could encroach.

All this, from so _small_ a life. No, not small—it was coiled, deep and tight. There was a lot of life in Kiam, and more heat for their world. The incandescence in his bones, his breath— _all_ this from a touch and a link and a promise—and no bitch of sand and sulphur was going to take that from him. No one had dared approach him for years. She was from a sea-land. An over-mountain land—and she was strong. It would take time for the magic to tell him how to contain her. Time to find chains that would not rust or buckle under the slipperiness that brought her to this place on shifting, seeing winds. A few more days of coughs and shakes and the ache in his bones from drawing, drawing deep and constant, from the boy and the roil of potential that so few could see—

"—You _are_ killing yourself that way."

The bitch's voice, small and shrill, outside his tent.

The _mchowni_ coughed and shifted as smoke stung his eyes. _Get her gone_. The thought was simple, but it was hard to draw, with her there. Hard to fall into the magic, hard to take the heat required to snap her, melt her, weaken her. She was small and shrill and infuriating. _But you_ could _melt her._ Always, in his thoughts.

Kiam was in the forge. The _mchowni_ could tell by his steady heartbeat; his even breathing and the strength in his arms as he worked something in a slow, easy rhythm. The _mchowni_ breathed, almost convulsing around the cough that twisted his gullet, and tried to pull a thread, then a stream, from the link between them, masking his own ragged breaths with the boy's full, clean ones. He tasted metal and the strange push-pull tightness of heat and steam on his young, giving skin. It was an easy link: barely a thought to grab handfuls of the stuff, of the need, in this body-that-was-his-body, this strength-of-his-strength. Nothing at all, suddenly, to draw power strong enough to flay her skin and crack her bones to power and to stop her breath in a scream where all moisture was snatched away and she might even cough. _Cough_ as the _mchowni_ did, bringing copper and iron into his lungs and trapping—trapping air. Trapping—

—Tris Chandler heard the thump as the _mchowni_ keeled to one side, buckling tent fabric and stirring dust with his fall. She sighed.

Tris hitched up her skirt and, with reluctant urgency, began to run.

* * *

The first explosion stole Kiam's breath and his eyebrows.

He had time to look down and see the molten wreck of pliers now pooling across his hand before the second blast lifted him off his feet and into the opposite wall. Nails _rained_. He heard them rattle and fall from the shelves his body had broken, but they didn't _hit_ the ground—they splattered to it, skittering drops that flecked his clothes and made them char away, covering his skin. His _skin_. It was tight, so very tight, and twisted, almost as if it writhed to meet the metal that fell on it. Arching, mad caresses that would leave him a burnt cripple, nothing to heal save fluid and bone, which would drip into the earth past quartz and roots and beyond floods of granite, to the home, the heart beneath all that, the forge…

The third explosion stole his mind.


	4. Rosethorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niva meets a new old-enemy, amongst other things.

_**T** he Winding Circle Temple; Summersea, Emelan_:

Niva scowled.

She had walked. She had walked halfway across the world with the weather-witch, who bit her nails. She also talked to herself and needed, according to her muttering, to be in Mbau and up by Kerang all at once.

Impossible feats from an impossible person, and now Niva was wandering the strange, orderly Circle world, and Trisana Chandler was gone, without so much as a by-your-leave. _Niva_ , she had said, would be at home in the Earth Temple until Tris returned ("Whenever I can!") and had time to explain why she had plucked out of her father's holdings ("It's a long, complicated answer. If you want the satisfaction of it, ask me when I've time to explain,"). As it was, Niva had instructions to, "Stay out of trouble," which only increased her desire to stick a fork into someone's eye. Earth Temple novices, she felt, were a soft lot.

The Temple earth, she conceded, was beautiful.

Walking on it, breathing in the faint complaints of grass under her tread, slipping into the kitchen gardens to feel the potential of herbs only now unfurling, she felt that if she had _told_ anyone this, they might not even laugh at her. This was a temple where other people walked with mud on their hem, and bent to pull a weed without even thinking of it. The beds of her nails kept their green and brown stains, even as her hair and skin took on Emelan's bright, long-drawn scent, rather than the damp, warmer tones of Anderran. With her eyes closed and the sun on her face, Niva Magnusson belonged.

In the dormitories, or the kitchens, or the long, crowded classrooms, Niva was a weed. She stuck, and she stung, and people tried to pull her. She did not know how to breathe. She did not have a fa or ei or some kind other monosyllabic frippery in her name. She was no healer. Dedicate Elmsreach _was_ stupid for planting madder anywhere near a patch of lettuces, if she didn't want greens that stained her teeth scarlet, and she would not take it back no matter how much the uppity farmgirl this supposedly made her sound.

And the next time any of those ridiculous boys pulled her hair, she _would_ bite them. She was staying out of trouble. Everyone else just walked right in and poked it.

And so now, rather than "Reflect upon her behaviour," in the dreary confines of the girls' dormitory, she was walking. And the gardens were beautiful.

The house of glass made her stop.

It was tall. Taller, perhaps, than one man and half again, if he were lanky. And in the late spring light, it shimmered and shot at her, all strangeness and sharp edges. A sharp place full of soft, drowsy voices, of plants that had shades she had never known, mumbling happily about _warmth_ and _wet_ in quantities that, Niva felt, just did not _exist_ in this climate.

She looked around, shaking her head to clear the tropical languor that wanted to settle there. There was no one to see her come up to the glass and lay a hand on it. No one to see her shudder as her mouth was flooded with tastes she could sift through but barely understood: hibiscus and orchid, vanilla and peppery mint that to her closed eyes had strange, serrated leaves and red tips; nothing like the kitchen taste she knew. It caught in her throat, and their voices were slower and stronger than ever, drinking in the air behind the glass.

Niva opened her eyes and peered. She could see nothing. The glass was so thick that all it gave back to her were blurred shapes and shades of green. The movement there made her head hurt. It was easier with closed eyes. The plants were drunken and strange, but they were _plants_ , and they spoke to her.

The tomato scent was a shout. This plant she knew. It lived in pots by her father's doorway, twining up stakes against the wall. It belonged in her memories, red seeded salt against her lips as she tasted something she had grown for the first time, full of a four-year-old wonder and her father's proud smile. The catch-in-your-throat-and-nose sharpness, peppersweet, as leaves practically bruised themselves against any ungentle hand. The acid of green fruit cooked down to jam.

This plant was different. A gross, distended thing in the wrong type of heat. Sun turned to something else, through all that glass, and Niva knew, with all the certainty in her body, that if she walked into this building, she would see a plant as it was _never_ meant to look. Overgrown and watery, with the sheen of something kept rather than living or understood. Bile rose, and Niva turned to the door.

A hand closed around her ear. The nails on it were well kept. They dug. "Hey!"

" _I'm_ the one who should be exclaiming, girl."

It was a lofty voice. Which, Niva realised, peering up with stinging eyes at her captor, was like the rest of him. A lofty, thin voice full of grease. He said 'girl' like it was a disease he might catch. His eyes were large, and dark, and tired. His face was sallow, too much so for the long yellow robes he wore. His other hand was splayed over his chest like some affronted old woman in a travelling play. His nose, like the rest of him, was very, very long.

"You should be ashamed!" The words did not slip out. They rushed out of her, tumbling over her heartbeat and the breath in her lungs. "You're doing something _awful_ in there."

"The only awful _you_ have to worry about is the punishment you shall receive for lurking so on Temple property, and spitting at your betters like some urchin." The hand not clutching Niva's ear reached into the depths of his vivid robe, and drew out a large, white cloth. To Niva's amazement, he moved the cloth quickly over the place her hand had been, polishing away marks.

"Any tomato you grow in that thing isn't even going to taste _dead_ ," she muttered.

The ear-hand tugged, and, yelping, Niva found herself looking at two dark, upraised eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

 _Stay out of trouble_. Well, if this idiot kicked her out, at least the weather-witch would probably fry him with lightning whenever she returned. "You heard me."

He drew himself up, taking in more hot air than his glass house. "Do you know who I _am_?" he said, appalled. "I am Dedicate Crane, First Dedicate Initiate of the Air Temple and _you_ , girl, are—"

"—better and knowing how some things are _meant_ to grow in season."

"—are clearly one of _his_ , even if he doesn't know it yet." A pause. "Unless, of course, you were spying for him?"

Insane. She was in the manicured clutch of a madman. "Spying for _who_ , and who's aunty?"

Dedicate Crane no longer deigned to speak to her. He merely dragged, stride fast and his grip too strong for Niva to run away from him without a great deal of blood. And she could not see where his shins were under all those skirts. No easy kick. She did hear a faint, disdainful and a mutter that sounded something like, " _Whom._ "

The walk was not long, though it made her breathless. They passed rows and rows of garden beds, and the shadow of the Hub felt smaller at Niva's back before they reached the whitewashed door of a single, double storied building, with a winding path leading up to it and a back garden that sung with seasonal brightness. The way Crane flung the door open made Niva think that, if he could, he would have passed through the structure like a vengeful ghost. The light inside was soft, and dim save a bright light by one window, where a lady sat.

Where a lady had been sitting. Now, she was before them in a rustle of skirts, eyes startled and wide. "Crane," she said, her voice soft, but very firm. "You know nasty things have happened when I'm surprised, lately. If I hadn't felt it was you at the last minute, you'd be stuck to the floor."

So, that _was_ the man's name. Niva sniffed, pulling free of him. His hands had gone oddly limp.

"Sandrilene," he said, unctuousness spoilt by fast-moving breath. "Forgive my haste. This _girl_ —"

"—Has never been here before in her wee little life."

This was a new voice, from behind them. Niva spun, and a compact, bronze-skin man in an Earth Temple robe grinned at her, his teeth very white and his eyes very green. There was a space next to him, just wide enough to bolt, but he raised a hand, and Niva's attention was caught by the writhing movement on his wrist and forearm—plants that sprouted and bloomed and died, but in _dye_ , and in all the colours she thought she could name. She stared, and he broadened his stance to fill the space, still grinning.

"Trust me," he was telling the room. "I'd know." And he _winked_ at her. Niva sniffed.

"Briar," said the woman, all cordial sweetness. "Dedicate Crane thinks you're spying on him again."

"Ah, shame, old man." The Earth Temple Dedicate turned his evil, warm look upon Crane, and reached out to clap him on the shoulder. The noise this provoked was similar to a strangled cat.

The whole room was ignoring her. Niva glared. "I was _not_ spying."

"No?" The shorter Dedicate—Briar? There were certainly thorns on the plants that shifted beneath his skin—eyed her considering, head tilted to the side. "What were you doing, then?"

"I wanted to know how he changed the weather!" She bridled under his gaze, unsure of trouble and _sure_ of strangeness. "And he's growing tomatoes out of season! They don't like it!"

"Oh?" A slow smile from him, as Crane started forward, only to be restrained by the lady's small hand on his arm. "Don't they?"

Who did he think he was? "Don't patronise me!"

He ignored her. "Dedicate Crane _is_ a skilled gardener," he said. "And he's spent half his life dreaming of a greenhouse, and the other half living in it."

"Skilled!" Crane sniffed. "Insolent thief—"

"—Shut up while I'm defending you?" Briar grinned again. "It's not as if I have much of it in me. As I was saying, he is a _skilled_ gardener, as full of Green magic as you, and—"

"—he's...you know I..." Niva stared, another small noise escaping her as the aggravating Earth Dedicate rolled his eyes.

"So everyone's going to interrupt me today? Fine. And of course he does. Of course you do. Had it pegged by the time Crane was halfway dragging you up here. Coppercurls mentioned I'd probably run into someone, last time she found herself talking to people not made of wind." He shrugged off Niva's continued glare, and Crane's groan. "Crane, crosspatch, would never hurt a plant any more than you would."

Crosspatch. The name was unspeakable, Better not to speak it. And Coppercurls? "He wasn't _hurting_ it," she conceded, looking at neither man. "He was _changing_ it, and that was wrong. Besides," she said, lifting her chin. "They'll never taste right that way."

"Oh?" Briar's grin was back, one eyebrow raised almost into his close cropped dark hair. "Is that right?"

" _Discipline_ ," Crane spat. "That's what the girl needs."

"Well, yes. I'd worked out the point of your angry cat act," Briar's voice slid over the other mans as if they were both sharing some kind of joke. One that Crane did not appreciate. "I'm sure she's not just 'girl,'" said Briar.

"I'm Niva," said Niva Magnusson. "And you shouldn't talk over my head."

"Pretty name," said the man, infuriating. " _Almost_ as pretty as mine. I'm Briar. Or Dedicate Briarmoss, if you want the full thing." He nodded to the lady, whose smile had slowly been growing sweeter and more wicked throughout this exchange. "She's Lady Sandrilene, or Sandry to the likes of you. She's helping me out here for the time."

"Helping you with _what_?"

"Looking after you, of course."


	5. Niko

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winding Circle Temple makes Niko rather uncomfortable, in more ways than one.

Niko stared at the flat, neat expanse that had opened out before him. A hub and spokes encircled by stone and by the weight of everyone else inside it, colourful-yet-tidy in defining robes. The air was incense and cut grass and the incessant vibration of bells and voices and, somewhere, anvils struck in a beat that was entirely their own.

“Oh,” he said. “I am _never_ going to fit here.”

Trisana Chandler’s hand fell lightly to the back of his neck. “Quiet, you.”

“No, you don’t understand. I don’t—I’m not _like_ —”

“That lot down there?” Niko had grown used to the woman’s dry tones, during their long trek from his home mountains, but she was, at that moment, especially droll. “You know, Master Symthe, you have a _way_ with expressing yourself that’ll get you punched in the face, even in a peaceful community.”

Niko bristled. “Look, _you’re_ a Lightsbridge mage. I _want_ to be a Lightsbridge mage. So why did you take me—”

“—to the green and happy centre of the Living Circle?” The woman’s eyes sparkled, and Niko felt his own face tighten almost as fast as the knot in his stomach. “I’m not saying you’re fit for a novitiate, boy—but _novicing_ , well—”

“—do you always interrupt people?”

Tris smiled, and the boy swallowed as shadows deepened to blue-grey metal across their faces. Below, further in from their place at the wall, some Dedicates glanced up to the darkening space and, he was sure, shrugged. One woman, dressed in Water blue, waved, provoking a snort from the mage. Niko looked away from the sky, and swallowed.

“You were saying?”

No one, in all his live-long days, was ever going to listen to him.

Tris’s hand on his neck again, softer. Sometimes, exasperation could turn warm. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll tell you the whole of it once I have a whole. You, of all of them, need to learn that soon enough.” A quick grin. “And _don’t_ ask: ‘whole of what,’ if you please.”

Niko glanced up at her, then away, mutinous, and deliberately stepped out of her grip. Tris did not move to reclaim it. “I have someone in the infirmaries to visit,” she said, calmly. “And then I have to be out of here faster than I’d like. But I can give you a tour at least to the libraries.”

“Libraries?”

Her grin was brief and twisted her face rather than lighting it, but it was vivid all the same. “ _Now_ he looks interested,” she said to the air around her. “Yes, Niko Smythe. Libraries. The Winding Circle Temple, you know, is quite the envy of Lightsbridge.”  


* * *

  
Kitchens. Gardens. Novices skittering out of Tris Chandler’s way as if she were throwing sparks—which, Niko reflected, recalling one night halfway across Kerang and a thunder storm, was not all that unlikely. He let the landmarks pass over him in a blur, focusing instead on the little twitches and flinches and pinched, strained moments that passed across Tris’s face. “Everyone” she had muttered, more than once, “Is just too cursed _loud_.”

Strange, how she could harp on about that, and then look as calm and relaxed near a handful of forges as his aunts did when drinking tea. The buildings—most open on three sides, with fires licking up the arms of their broad-backed inhabitants—pulsated with sound.

The mage caught something in his face. “Calm, ordered, ‘making’ thoughts,” she said, as if that was supposed to make any sense at all. _Stranger still_ , he thought, _that it almost does_.

Tris paused to watch one of the smiths at work. A tall woman who, like Tris, seemed neither young nor old, though far too old for the slightly scorched white novice robes she wore under a leather apron. She had muscle that was long rather than heavy on her dark, gleaming arms, and a dreamy, distracted look in her large eyes that, Niko felt, seemed to go against the solid, bashing work of some glowing, white hot tool against her anvil. He nearly laughed. _Just because my mother’s family had some etymological affinity with smithwork doesn’t mean_ I _know anything._

The too-old novice wore her hair in braids, most of them pulled back with a scarf in a shade of eye-smarting red that tugged at Niko’s memory. Something—perhaps he had read it once—that sang out now at the sight of this tall, burnt-brown woman whose lungs seemed to take in twice the amount of air of ordinary mortals. She looked up, then, and grinned. A slow, slightly wicked sort of smile that, unlike Tris’s, truly lit her face.

“Back from your mad wanderings?” she asked mildly, and Niko noted that her voice was low and steady, and that she was barely winded. Brass beads at the end of her braids caught at him, along with her smile.

“Who’s this, then?”

“Product of some mad wanderings” said Tris. “Niklaren Smythe. You’ll see him around, I expect.”

The voice of his irascible traveling companion faded as the smith took his hand in her own. “If Tris expects, that’s a certainty,” she said. “I’m Daja Kisubo.” Another brass thing caught at him. Not the beads in her hair, but the cap of a staff, tucked neatly away behind her as his world jolted and darkened, smoothing out into nothing at all.

 _Something sang at him. It sang, and then the singing turned to keening—sharp in his ears and impossibly strong—flooding him with as much sound as there was salt in his cracked, bleeding mouth. A rhythm stuttered, formed, pulsed over and over until it was snatched away in broken, ragged notes of pain-inside-the-pain. Loss. Ill luck. Always, always loss._

He looked up at the council. The mimander _was the only one who would meet his eyes, prepared as she was for exactly these moments where other lives broke to bits on rocks and blades and water. The_ Tsaw’ha _knew what to do. He knew it, deep in his heart, but he still dreaded the words. Tears rolled down his cheeks, searing salt against dozens of tiny cuts in his battered flesh. He clenched his hands around the stoud, copper lined box that had come to his hands, singing safey and blessings whilst bringing a curse to all these people here._

“Daja Kisubo, late of the Third Ship Kisubo…”

The unmarked staff waited, gleaming his story in the mimander’s _hands. No real need to speak._

“…you must carry this staff at all times, as it marks you for other Traders. Other Traders will not hear, nor speak to you. You are Trangshi, _ill—”_

“—Boy!” The slap was not hard, but it broke something. Niko coughed, stunned from his new vantage point of the world, which seemed to be from on his knees. His head spun, and his throat felt raw. _Keening_ , he thought. _All that_ keening.

“It’s terribly rude to get lost in other people,” said Tris dryly, as he shook his head and stared at her. “Decent sorts ask first.”

“I…I—what do you mean—I…you _knew_?” He could not look at the smith—Novice Daja, late of the Third Ship Kisubo—though he felt that she was certainly looking at him.

“Of course I knew,” Tris said gruffly, leaning down and hauling him to his feet. “It’s a particular hazard we share.” A pause, while he swayed. Daja caught his back. Tris sighed. “Clear, was it?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so…so _sorry_.” Niko couldn’t help the words. His skin still felt tight. Blood still sang and stung in his mouth. Her blood? Tears started to drip down his face.

Tris cleared her throat. “Enough of that,” she told him, hands rather urgent on his shoulders, grey eyes intent on his face. Daja was behind him, for which he thanked all the gods, absent or otherwise.

“I…Tris?”

Tris shook her head, curls bouncing a little around her face. “I’m still heading to the infirmary,” she told him. “But you’re coming with me, just for a brief spell.”


	6. Lark, Daja

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paraskeve is frustrated, but engages in some small heroism for one over-set by alley cats

Paraskeve toyed with the food on her plate, and sighed.

The Hub food was not bad. That, after months in the Mire, would be impossible. It was plentiful, and that virtue more than made up for the lingering taste and scent of cinnamon that showed up in the unlikeliest of places. _Lentils_ , she thought, pushing one. The heavy, dun coloured morsel didn't look it, but her mouth would be bewildered by sweetness that was faint, but also faintly stinging, if she ever brought it there. Dedicate Moonstream, temple cook, had obvious spice preferences.

She sighed again, setting down her fork. The fact that she was sitting here idling over the proper seasonings for food that, until recently, she had simply inhaled without question, proved that she did not have anywhere near enough to do. The Air Temple was beautiful—Paras's breath caught in a pleasant, comfortable way whenever she looked out the high windows and saw birds and leaves and even dust swirling together in a dance above the world—but the children enclosed in Paras's long, clean swept dormitory were encouraged to read or to talk. "Further themselves," Dedicates said, both with sniffs and well-intended smiles. Lessons were in a large group of people who looked as bored as she felt but were _confident_ with it, smirking and groaning whenever a heavy, leather bound reader found its way into her hand. 'Reader' was a stupid name for the undecipherable thing and Paras flushed even now, looking at her plate and seeing the faces of the girls who winced and said, "Dedicate, can't we just _skip_ her? She takes so long...", and she heard her own hoarse little voice stumble over blocks she could barely make out.

No one ever skipped her.

No one at dinner—at least, no child—was allowed to leave the table hall for a bell after serving time. Paras had learnt this quickly, when the happy, warm feeling of the First Dedicate's hand on her forehead and the sound of his deep voice still left sparkling impressions on her. _Earth Temple_ , _or Air_ , he'd said. _And she_ —that lady, blue and ghostly and queer and determined— _really will insist_. And, well, she was in the Air Temple, right enough, up stairs that still made the air drag up through her chest, though she now knew there were potions to drink. But there had been no lady. And no Tris, either. The fidgety woman who had dragged her from the ground and forced medicine down her throat, and scowled at the books she read in such a way to make the air move inside with closed windows, had not come to see her, though the day she'd left the healers she had heard snatches of, "All the way from _Mbau_ ," and, "Still _screaming_ ," that made her think of the mage. But the screamer from far flung geography was not nearby, and a bell's time was too long for a girl who may or may not be abandoned the next time she blinked, and so it simply made her scowl. But she was warm, and fed, and there had been no...other moments. No fits. _Ungrateful little scut_ , she thought. _So much for being happy enough not to die!_

Paras reached down for the bag she'd been sure to set by her feet, drawing out the still bright figure of her _yaskedasu_. A matter of seconds to pull a needle free from its home in the underside of her borrowed, white sleeve—yellow thread still trailing from earlier endeavours. She found a frayed seam and set to work. She ignored the only sometimes-muttered judgement of, "Baby!" passed down by tablemates.

She could not ignore spitting.

It was not, Omini bless, directed at her, but it was so loud and accompanied by such a varied collection of breathless jeers that she had to look up. The hall had split around a person—a tall, dark person whose staff struck the floor in a rhythmic but unreassuring tap as she moved amongst the tables. The cap of it shone mirror bright, but it was the robes the woman wore that sent a shiver through Paraskeve. Bright, white things. Not obvious-borrowed castoffs like her own, but the sort of white that spoke of purpose and of vows, despite the staff and the blood red cloth she could see in the woman—the _novice's_ —braided hair. Paras remembered the Caravan Qurilta, who had guided her family's troupe to Aliput, and the stories she had overheard, the warm language that lapped over her like the gold they took for goods. _A novice_ here _, to kaq gods?_ It didn't make any sense.

"Hey, _Trader_ , what're you trying for?"

Paraskeve hissed at the drawl, unable to keep her eyes from the scene, though her needle still moved. The tall trader-novice shugged. "My dinner," she said, in low, soft-accented Common.

"But this is _our_ food you're stealing." The boy leading this scene was, Paras thought, barely older than her, and the Trader—considerably older than _both_ of them; another shock under the whites—could probably flick a finger at him and break his knees. "What happens when we get sick of it, or _sick_ , Trader?"

"Then there'll probably be fighting, and some broken heads." Paras could only admire her level tone, as she saw muscles in her face draw and tighten in sad anger. "But not with children."

The woman sat down alone, to hisses.

And Paraskeve Aygry got to her feet.

"Can I sit here?" She couldn't help the nervous squeak that pretended to be her voice as she spoke to the big Novice—who, Paras noticed with a small shiver, had broad shoulders and long, lithely muscled arms under those robes—but she kept her chin steady. "They're like alleycats, over there. Scratching and yowling all the time."

She received a long, level stare. "Do what you like, child- _kaq_ ," she said, in Tradertalk.

Paras swallowed, and sat down. "I like," she said, in fumbled-for and stuttering Tradertalk of her own, "To sit with people who aren't stupid."

A startled laugh. "Your accent is...not so terrible."

Paras smiled, shyly. "My family, they travelled once, with a caravan—and the _gilav_ said I'd an ear. I mean, she didn't _directly_ say so, of course, because I wasn't supposed to pick up the bits I did, but we were on the road for months and—"

"—I think," said the woman, her teeth flashing a grin, "you're a prettier speaker in my old tongue."

The girl flushed. "Um—"

"—and it is brave of you to wade through that sea of _kaqs_ to sit next to someone like me," she said, shaking her head a little.

"What? Like..." Paras shifted, eyes settling on the ebony staff a moment. "Listen, I'm a _kaq_ , a cripple, and I have to sleep next to half those people. I don't believe in your sort of bad luck and couldn't catch it anyway." Her own boldness surprised her, and she swallowed, hand flying to her mouth.

The woman stared again, and then laughed, low in her throat. "All that, and you seem decent," she said. "I'm Daja."

"Paraskeve," said Paras. She looked down at Daja's heaped plate. "Um...are you new here? I am, so I wouldn't know, but if you don't like cinnamon—"

More laughter. "—A bit strong, isn't it? Sometimes, I go to the house of a friend, and the fare there is a little more varied. "

"Oh." Paras sighed. "So you're not new, then."

"Not hardly," said Daja. She reached out, then, and took Paras's hand—the one that was not still clutching the doll by an arm. "But I felt a new good tonight," she said in Tradertalk, and Paras flushed again. "Thank you."

* * *

The evening passed more easily than Paras had hoped, trudging out for it. She and the Trader- _Trangshi -_ novice-and-apparent-smith Daja Kisubo had talked long past the loathsome bell, though Paras felt at the end of it, stepping outside with the night air against her face that she had told the woman a great deal more than she had been told in turn. She wasn't even sure of Daja's age. Still, she found she was smiling, and the temple seemed less of a strange, lonely place. She had done something someone else thought was brave.

Lifting her chin, Paras turned and moved in a steady pace to the Healer's wing. Perhaps, just perhaps, she would find Tris Chandler, and see if there really was a screaming boy.


	7. The Duke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tris and the Duke run away with the scene, Niko sulks, and Paraskeve is outraged

_**D** _ _uke's Citadel; Summersea, Emelan:_

"You look dreadful."

"So do you. _And_ like a pirate."

Vedris's court had not, in the years since his wife's death, been a bright one. In the wake of Sandrilene's poisoning, it was dire. The Duke reflected his large, echoing surrounds, the watery light that made its way through black draperies hitting the gold trim on his left shoulder in one rather forlorn spark. It should, Tris thought, have been an earring. He was big, broad shouldered. The light hit his head as well, shaven as carefully as Tris Chandler kept her own ragged mess wrapt and locked under pins and brains, and with as much purpose. He was not tall, but taller than the stocky woman, uncloaked and over-shadowed. But he smiled at her.

"I am glad to see you safe returned, Trisana."

Tris couldn't help but smile back as she stirred her tea. "The roads weren't too difficult for this time of year, Your Grace."

He waved a hand, brushing the title from the air like so-much cobweb, and Tris shook her head, minutely. The Duke would never be free of it. He didn't have a good enough housekeeper. "Trisana," he said. "You are _sure_?"

"That Sandry will be safe?" Tris Chandler scowled. "Safer then here, I can say, but you _know_ I daren't—"

"—No." Not a trace of apology in the low, elegant voice. "You left the Citadel, and my grandniece, after _visions_ \--and you come back with four somewhat disparate children. And whilst I trust you very much, Trisana, there is a need to _know_."

Tris swallowed, straightening her spine, tension cracking through her shoulders. "Your Grace," she said, high spots of colour mottling her freckled face. "You can never seem to help asking me the one or two things I am unable to give. Including certainty."

She was not, she knew, throwing sparks. But now, the Duke's hand moved through the air between them as if gathering such things from, her, rather than cobwebs; almost the way she had seen his great niece gather up a ball of wool. She shifted. "No one Sees quite the way I do, with the weather," she said, a little thick. "It's loud, and it's vicious, and it's a self-taught a snarled mess and you... _still_ keep me on anyway."

Not quite a smile. "I think, Trisana," said the Duke, "You have just answered part of your own question. Would you do me the honour of attempting to answer part of mine?"

Tris scowled. "I saw them, and I found them, I tramped all over the roads for them, and we _need_ them, Vedris. I don't know why, yet. It's not political." She snorted. "Not _yet_ , anyway, but all four of them are important. There's a thread mage amongst them, and she is _right_ for Sandry. And, Shurri help me, I've found my boy if I don't kill him by the time a month is out."

Trisana caught a slightly dazed look in Vedris's face, and smiled ruefully. "My point, Your Grace, and perhaps a quarter-Astrel answer to your question, is that I have found someone I _strongly_ believe Sandry will need a great deal. I know her."

"And you cannot tell me why." His voice was soft in the draped, empty room.

"No, Your Grace."

She flinched as he laid a large, square hand on her shoulder. "Trisana," he said. "You look exhausted."

Tris sagged a little, head falling forward. "If you wish to dismiss me for madness, Vedris," she said, very quiet. "I shall hold the grudge to my grave and _completely_ understand." She cleared her throat. Another scowl. "Besides, your Ducal presence is exhausting."

Vedris's laugh, perhaps, surprised both of them. "I only did manage to win a whole quarter of astrel of an answer from you, Merchant Chandler," he said, warm, as Tris's scowl grew more certain and familiar. "But I was a wrestler, in my youth."

* * *

 _**W** _ _ards of Yanna Healtouch; Winding Circle Temple, Emelan:_

There was no laughter in the infirmary. Niko sat on his pallet, pale, and listened to raw, broken screams. "Tris, _what_ —"

"—hush." The woman was flushed and breathless from the not-long walk from the screamer's bed to his own, but her words broke over his like waves, and he had no chance. "It's as I told you. The boy had all his magic ripped from his body and then shoved back inside it all at once. Know what that feels like?"

"Er...no, I—"

"—no, you _don't_ , so just call yourself lucky and don't _think_ about it, because if you do, you might _See_ it and then there'll be trouble."

"You can't just tell someone _not_ to think about something," Niko snapped. "That's perverse!"

"Call me madam perversity and be done with it."

Niko glared at the woman. "Why am I still _here_ , anyway?"

"Because there's a place I need to take you. I didn't know things with Kiam were this bad when we came in here."

"Kiam? That's his name?"

"Yes. He'll be coming to Discipline with you."

" _Discipline_? So I'm being punished?"

"You're—"

"I'm being punished." Niko set his jaw, eyes narrowing. "I cannot _believe_ this."

"You," said Tris, "Deserve a thick ear."

Niko did not see the faint smile at the edges of Tris's mouth. "Is it because of what I did?" he asked, voice wavering. "What I Saw, I mean?" He slumped, resisting all urges to protect his still-thin ears.

Tris sighed. "No," she said hoarsely. "I would _never_ punish anyone for that."

* * *

Tris Chandler, Paras saw, was in the healing wards, but she was so busy talking to a skinny boy who was all knees and eyelashes that she never noticed her. How anyone could notice anyonewho was not the screaming boy—on account of, well, screaming—Paras did not know. But he was alone. No Dedicate fussed around him, pouring poppy down his throat.

He was on a strange bed, for this place. One without a frame: ticking, sheet, and a loose, light cloth that he had kicked aside. He was naked and darker than her and streaked with sweat, and there were lights in the curtains around his space. Bright, imperious lights that said _keep out!_ to Paraskeve more clearly than any of the signs girls in her dormitory stencilled into their belongings. There were no words in this meaning.

He was all lean muscle and tension. Everything tight and knotted and snarled. One tooth was cracked. His hair, dark masses of it, was uneven, as if bits had been burnt away, and it was shocking, somehow, to see the inside of his mouth, open and pained and desperate and wet, still, even after too much air. Pink and black and red and open More shocking than seeing the rest of him laid bare.

Why had everyone left him alone?

Paraskeve stepped forward, and touched his cheek, gasping as fire shot up her arm, and crying out as strong arms caught her from behind and pulled her away.


	8. Frostpine, Briar, Niko, Rosethorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Briar has a teaching moment, and the four come into each other's lives.

Voices. There were no people, but there were voices. Catching at him like sand in his eyes and under his nails and skin. Shouts and sobs and questions and blasts of sand, which he melted slick and red and burning to his body, encasing him, so the world was trapped, airless echoes.

"— _what? Save us, what is—?"_

"— _it's all come back to him, you tick-brained fools. All that_ power _—"_

"— _Witch!"_

" _Call me what you like. He's coming with me."_

"Good _. There's nothing here for—"_

Voices. Roaring muted through glass and his own heartbeat. And motion, sharp and ungentle and dizzying even while he stayed blind. Voices. Screaming. _Screaming_. Nails and wheels and, "Curse-it! The cart's broken again," and that one voice, the witch's voice, there and there and _there_.

" _Master Chandler, I don't know if we have the provisions for such a—"_

"— _You're a Dedicate. You_ provide _. Make provision."_

" _And...but the_ screaming _..."_

" _You'll do worse if we have to keep standing here."_

Quiet, now. Only his heartbeat left, and his blood. The glass. Something strange under him, soft and slippery. Too much effort to catch. Too cold. He is cold, now, and that cracks him, deep and desperate, his veins turned to faultlines. Small sounds, wet sounds.

" _Don't touch him, Paraskeve."_

" _It...it_ hurt _when I—and what are you doing here?"_

" _Something's been eating at my shields all week, and then you mentioned screaming...come away now."_

"Why _is he—"_

"— _I can help him. Go with Tris now, please."_

" _Yes, my girl, come with—"_

"— _nobody_ tells _me anything!"_

" _Hush."_

Weight against his face, and around his hand. He had hands. And fingers. Strange, bloated things, all skin and shattered mess inside. The weight closed his skin tighter, and drew his bones together in all the places, so he was hinged and bolted and soldered. Not neat, but firm.

" _Pijule fakol waits for those that did this."_

The tightness moved from that hand up his arm—he had an arm!—and across his chest. Through him, over him and down again, through every last fingertip and the long, strange things that he remembered were his thighs, his feet. Brass flooded his mouth, acrid and sharp and it _sang_ , a loud, strong note high in his head, a pressure just behind the bridge of his nose. His eyes watered, and he opened them before he could lose them again.

A dark face looked down at him, eyes heavier than the hand still held against his cheek. Her lips were pinched tight, and it seemed to take some time for her to drag air into her lungs after she saw he could see her.

"Kiam," she said. "My name is Daja. Welcome back."

The brass song warmed and thrilled, molten in his skull, and Kiam Ngaire slipped into real sleep.

* * *

 _**D** _ _iscipline Cottage; Winding Circle Temple, Emelan_

Niva pulled at weeds.

They were thick and luxurious in this weather, taking gentle sun as a sign to come up— _up_ , even if it did end in a rather ungentle death. It was admirable, if Niva refused to think of their sticky, skinny, tricksome white roots strangling this crop of beans. She had told Dedicate Briar this, hoping it might shock him, but he only laughed. "I used to cry like a baby, pulling them," he'd told her with perfect disregard for any dignity.

 _Maybe they were right, back home, and Dedicates don't care if they're thought of like men, at all_. Niva knew _she_ did not care a bit for being treated like her femaleness made her some sort of delicate thing, cosseted and kept back all at once, and that seemed sensible to her and any of the woman-Dedicates she might meet, but men were—well. More _stupid_ that way, surely? Even here. Except that Dedicate Briar seemed entirely sensible. Except when he wasn't. She tugged at a patch of Heartsclover, joyously violet and more poison than any ten bodies could cope with all at once. Dedicate Briar had been pleased she knew that, though it made him more distracted than usual, looking over at the Lady Sandry with an odd, dark expression on his face. Sandry, sunning herself by the kitchen window, doing the dishes like any farmgirl or potsboy, turned and smiled at the both of them, though most of that warmth spilled onto Briar.

Niva, as she tossed the now uprooted plant into the pile of wilting purple that had grown by her left foot while she worked, supposed that she could be wrong about one or two things around Winding Circle. Like Dedicates in general.

 _Sandry's probably breaking rules_ , she thought, smiling a little even as the images made her screw up her face. _But I bet she never cares_.

"You go and wash your hands after you've done with this."

Niva glowered at the new shadow, not looking up. "I'm not _stupid_ ," she said. "Don't you know you should wear a hat?"

The Dedicate laughed. "I'm not so vain as you are rude, you know."

"If I'm so rude, why do you want to teach me?"

Niva swallowed after the words left her mouth, flushing and glaring even more furiously at the earth. She heard the cloth of Briar's habit rustle as he knelt. "Because," he said, "You might just be a gifted little scrap now, but _I_ think you can be magnificent."

 _Magnificent_. The word hung there, _her_ word, in _his_ mouth. It was unsettling. She still could not look at him. "If I was teaching," she mumbled, "I'd just say, 'I need the slave labour,' or, 'Because I said so!' Or something."

Briar's hand was warm on her shoulder, and squeezed roughly. "That," he said, "is why I am the teacher and _you_ are not."

Niva snorted, glad the blush was finally leeching out of her face. "What are you going to teach today, O Great One?"

"Forbearance."

The girl waited.

"We're going to have company," Briar said cheerfully. "Tris's brought a few more magical waifs in to be poked at for a while."

Niva sighed, finally looking up into her strange new teacher's laughing eyes. " _Great_ ," she muttered. "More _people_."

 _**W** _ _ards of Yanna Healtouch; Winding Circle Temple, Emelan  
_

* * *

 _  
_

After half an hour in Paraskeve's company, waiting in an alcove with her while Tris and Novice Daja talked—and, he assumed, fussed over that boy who was screaming like all the inside bits of him were on the outside—Niko was sure he had not met anyone smaller or stranger in his life. She was staring at him with huge eyes, and her face was a mix of all the things Liesel and his aunts would have called disreputable.

"So," he said diffidently. "Where did Tris find you, then?"

"n'Summersea." Her voice was soft, and a little hoarse. Not frightened, he thought, but angry. She had not liked being pulled away from the boy Kiam, and she hadn't liked Tris's sharp words afterwards. And her words made no sense.

He blinked. " _Summersea,_ really? But your face! You don't look—your name isn't..."

"Is your name Stupid?" she asked him, still in that soft voice. She looked tired, and he knew he looked mottled with an ugly flush, as her eyes passed wearily over his face. "Because that's what _your_ face says."

"Hey! I didn't—I mean, I _didn't_ mean anything by it, only that—"

"Paraskeve Aygry!" A new person entered the alcove, smiling and freckled and only about Niko's own height, though she seemed to be at least thirty, with a voice that might make anyone tall. Paraskeve, her anger forgotten, was staring at her.

"I heard that you were finally coming up to us, and I know I should have waited, but I was entirely sick of such things, I'm afraid. You look so much better than when I saw you last."

" _Lady_ , I...um—"

"—and you must be Niklaren." The woman turned to him, a swirl of coral skirts, the girlish picture blurring before his eyes and showing streaks of bruising, of sickness and the wrong sort of sleep. Why was everyone so _tired_ , here? He was nervous to take her hands, but she was already grasping them, light and careful. "Tris said you'd be coming, and Kiam too, of course."

"Coming _where_?" He said the words even as he saw the girl tense to shape them.

"Discipline," she said. "My name is Sandry. I'll be one your teachers, there."

Before Niko could do anything more than gape at her, she turned again to Paraskeve, taking _that_ girl's hand and laying it gently on her bright sleeve. She was laughing very softly. "Silk loves you," she said, as if that was anything sensible. "I can feel the fibres just _shaking_ all over me. You're going to have trouble for a while, I'm afraid, but you can learn to calm anything, I promise."

She looked as if Sandry had given her gold. "It _really_ —"

"—Yes," said the lady. "It truly does. You're not mad."

Niko wished he could say the same.


	9. Ripplings

The four children sat panting and cross-legged in the Hub, and glared at each other.

“He did it _again—”_

 _“—_ I did no such thing! I can't even--”

“—Farmgirl ‘s right, I'm afraid. You're just so disruptive, somehow, that we all get—”

“—Jinked out of our skin! But _don't_ call me that, Master Skinny Sourface. It's a bad idea.”

“ _Skinny?”_

“And sour faced. Yes. You see?”

“Can you all just—”

“ —we'd all just shut up like good little mice, Paras, if _him over there_ would just settle down and breathe and let us mediate without splashing magic all the way to--”

“—Niva! Stop it. He has a _name_ —”

“—don't all you stupid _mchowni_ understand? I don't know how I'm _doing that_.”

Kiam's shout broke through the fierce whispers that been splintering against his skin all morning. The other three— the drab little mouse; the ghost-pale fighting one who got all flushed up during an argument as if the blood of her tongue-lashed victims filled her face; the other boy, who looked at him like he was a demon whenever he wasn't wandering around all bleary-eyed and bored —glared with the same pair of accusing eyes. No raised voices in the heart of Winding Circle. No meat at dinner. No getting out of chores. And excuses when his bones felt like they were about the break and he had no air and it somehow disturbed their skinny bodies as much as it hurt his. 

And then the air went thick in his lungs, a fist down his throat.

“I've had quite enough of this.”

The _mchowni_ Tris paced around the four of them, slow and measured, and Kiam felt the air tighten over his skin the closer she came, as if it filmed over them all to keep them still. Paras had her lip caught hard between her teeth and Niko was slightly grey. Niva had been caught glaring at the ground rather than at him, and all he could see besides the cloud of hair that fell in her face were the tight, twitching muscles of her bent neck.

“Time was,” said the mage, “When confronted with boring or difficult tasks, the student would complain _quietly,_ in their heads, and only when it was absolutely necessary.”

She pulled a face, sudden and rueful, and clapped her hands. Niko’s head jerked up, his mouth wide with surprise at the moment, and Tris stepped back as the four scrambled to their feet, her arms folding.  “I think,” she said, “The four of you should _not_ try things in concert for a while.”

“Are we in trouble?” This was from Niva, head cocked, her own arms clenched at her sides.

“Do _you_ think so?”

The girl squirmed.

***

Parakseve shivered. Sandry, reaching over to pluck the carding tools from her small hands, only smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Tris _is_ fierce when she’s angry.”

 _I bet she’s never angry at_ you. Paras blushed, never quite sure where to look at the elegant woman. She decided upon the crocus she could see twining about her left wrist, extending in delicate spirals up to her shoulder.  It was picked out in amethyst and gold tones against lush white silk. Paras was sure she had seen nothing quite as fine.

“I’m _very_ proud of this.” Sandry smiled at her. “If I could, I’d have it shift and grow—”

“—you can _do_ that?”

“—hush, sweet. Let me finish.” The slight woman leant forward, tugging on one of Paraskeve’s short, spiralled curls. “I _cannot_ do such a thing. I was terribly jealous when Briar managed it on his hands. The foolish boy used vegetable dyes—his teacher was livid—but it was such a _pretty_ accident.” She grinned as Paras shifted in her seat, trying to keep up with the flow of words.

 “Lady?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Are you...are you _really_ going to teach me?”

“I insisted.” There was a joke there, hovering about the word and making Paras think of the massive Honoured Gorse and his rumbling, soothing voice as he’d told her that her life really had changed forever. But Paras could not quite catch it.

“ _Why?”_

“Oh, because I can.” Sandry took both the girl’s hands in hers, blue eyes intent. “I’m not sure why, because Tris is often in any number of strange realms even when she’s standing in the same room as you are,  but she wants the four of you to work together. _I_ just know that, with a little help, you could thread your magic into just about anything. Do you _want_ to learn, Paraskeve?”

Paras swallowed. “I want...I want to know who tried to _kill you_ ,” she whispered, not hearing Sandry’s startled gasp. “Because I don’t know _why_ anyone would.”

Sandrilene fa Toren was almost startled enough to forget that her day’s lesson was a glimpse at fine embroidery— _always a reason, when I wear my best work!_ —but, while Paraskeve stammered and held bone needles as if they were gold, she recovered soon enough.

***

“Are you going to help me?”

Kiam, fleeing Tris’s ire and Niva’s muted jeering, had gone to the forges. They were fine things, and there had been plenty more to stare at than the one he lingered by now, with its modest array tools and the long, ebony staff leaning against the door like a curse. The brass took the fires and reflected them, without letting any image stay on its slick surface.  Daja Kisubo was a deity at her anvil, all broad back and well-worked shoulders, hardly out of breath as she beat metal before into something still unknown.  Her braids gleamed the same brass as her staff. And she had spotted him. He flinched.

“I don’t—”

“—don’t what, boy? You don’t _want_?”

He could taste the metal at the back of his throat. His hands clenched. Blood felt forge hot, felt _steel hot_ , slow and thick and bright in his veins. “The Smith at home warded against me,” he said, sure his voice would be lost in the clanging and the steam. “Screamed at me, because I—I didn’t—because I—”

“—because you _burned_ , I know.” She turned to face him, teeth bright in her streaked face. “You almost had the worst luck in the world.”

“It’ll happen again. I was sick for _weeks_ and it’ll happen again, because I’m stupid like the rich two say, and can’t breathe right, and I’ll _never_ —”

“Get any nails made standing there,” she said.

“Nails?”

“Nails. Ever made any?” She was grinning broadly now.

“Never! You’ll—you’re going to _let_ me?”

“Kiam. I promise that by the time I’m done with you, you’ll have made half the nails the whole world might need. I’ll enjoy every minute.”

Stunned, Kiam Ngaire stepped into the forge.

***

“I know you can’t read, but this is _my room_.”

“I—”

“—Get. Out.”

Paras and Niko glared at each other across a threshold.  The girl swallowed. Niko did not look well, his black eyes might have been cut into his narrow face, they looked so deep and strange. He had a room on the upper floors, near Kiam’s, but where Kiam’s room already held the clutter of a ten-year-old boy who liked to go running and often collected gravel in his clothes in the process, Niko’s room was still stark and cold. She had found herself drawn there, after the lesson with Sandry, remembering how sick he had seemed when Tris magicked them, and how, even when he said stupid things, he often said them with lips bitten raw.

She leaned against his bed, now, feeling the hard wooden slats bite into the backs of her knees, and her clenched hands twisted the fine cambric that had been caused all her trouble.

“I was—I just _wanted_ —I thought you might—”

“Know something nice when it happened to him? Mila, Paras, look at him. He’s _clearly_ dim.”

Niko started, turning to glare at niva as she laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“You were loud.” The girl sniffed. “I was _trying_ to read. And she’s trying to give you a present, fool.”

“ _Why?”_

“I thought you might like it!” Paras’s voice was cracking, but she glared at both children with equal heat. “Everyone’s so... _prickly_. I don’t know why I bothered, except that I _made_ this and I _like_ it and _Sandry_ liked it, and I was rude to you, Niko, so I thought I’d—oh, nevermind.” Embroidery dropping to the boy’s narrow bed, Paras fled the room.

“I do _not_ understand that girl,” Niko muttered, wincing as Niva cuffed him, her eyes drawn to the fragile, fine-stitched crocuses that almost seemed to grow from soft, white fabric.   

“Me neither,” she muttered, stalking past the boy to pluck up the work before turning to head for the stairs.


	10. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niko is troubled by his powers, amongst other things

 

There were many irritating things about Tris Chandler. But the one that plagued Niko most was her insistence on having their lessons on the beach.

It was not just any beach--it's wild, grey, rubble-strewn spaces were a lesson. The first time they'd stood there, Niko wincing as grit and stones worked their way into his boots, Tris had turned to him, smiled, and said that there had been small cliffs all about the place, and lovely, clear sand. "Until I tried to be clever and kill a storm."

Her tone was easy, but serious, eyes matching the early morning light. "All students," she'd said. "Are a bit stupid. And some can be stupid and powerful at the same time. It's a dangerous combination."

"I," Niko had said, hearing waves flicker and slip and grumble all about him, and trying to keep his words clear, "Can't do anything with the weather."

"No, but we're going to find out what you _can_ do, boy." Tris's smile had been thin. "I suspect it's powerful enough."

#

Since then, Niko had had nightmares about waves. Waves and stone and Tris's voice, constant and exasperated, as she told him not to _strain_ so, not to run forward trying to grab visions like they were pennies thrown from a cart. They breathed and counted and Tris told him of her own Sight--how time and the right books and her weather magic had allowed her to see snatches of other lives on the wind--futures that could be breaths or whole seasons away. She heard their voices, felt their touch on her face.

"It's why I'm a little mad," she said--sanely, sitting on the sand with her knees drawn up, skirts stained with salt. "I'll do my best not to pass that on."

Niko had to think--he had to _breathe_ , in meditation patterns that would have made Kiam shout and curse and, eventually, skulk away to sulk. Control over the body could, if you were very lucky, lead to control over the mind--and control over the mind might lead to control over what was _outside_ it, in all their colours and tricks and not-quite truths.

Niko's head, he was sure, would explode.

"Nonsense!" said the teacher, smiling as a stray breeze--gleeful and absolutely against any current--sneaked through her braids. Her hand was around his, her pulse rising as it matched his own. Her pulse always matched his own. Control. "There are risks to this, but combustion of any kind is _not_ one of them."

"Do you have to be...be so...glib?"

Niko swallowed, surprised at his own words, at how easily they'd burst from him. As if he'd never been taught to be quiet around his elders and betters. Tris, in her turn, only looked tired.

"What," she asked him, "Do you need?"

Niko stared. Tris, shaking her head, let her hand tighten about his.

"You meditate beautifully," she said. "You learn theory fast, and well, and you know it. But you're not so clever yet that you can fool me. I know there's something wrong. Is it the speed? Yours is a different sort of magic than weaving or smithing or making things grow. It's not going to show itself with all its colours all at once. You know--"

"--I don't know what the _point_ is."

A leap in his pulse, carefully matched, caught, and slowed. She breathed, and Niko, used to beach mornings and her demands, couldn't help but breathe with her, until his heart felt less like it was going to tear through his skin.

"I don't," he repeated. "See. All of this--" he waved his free hand. "It's so often wrong--even for you, and you usually _know_ when you're hearing a real voice or seeing a true picture. I thought that it didn't matter--the future part--since it's at least _useful_ to see present and past, but I can't even do _that_ regularly, and the future is..." he swallowed. "Stupid. Wrong. It just gets people's hopes up."

Tris did not look away from the sea. "Your father?"

"How do you--oh, of course you know. Sneak."

"Ha. Hardly." Tris shifted enough to glower one-eyed at him, light glinting off her spectacles. "I Saw you and your family the way I Saw all you children--rapidly and without warning, or much control. In your case, you were telling that silly sister of yours--"

"-- _half_ sister--"

"--half sister. Don't interrupt. You were telling her that you had seen a future that made her happy. Considering that I found you a fatherless and singularly awkward waif out in the mountains, I am assuming it did _not_ go well."

It was strange, how sometimes Tris's words failed to match her voice. Niko shivered."Can I fix it?" he  asked, very soft. "I want to fix it so that I'm never wrong."

"Ah," Tris sighed, pulling her hand away. "That's impossible--but we'll _always_ try."

 

#

Now he stood a little apart from his teacher, looking out to sea. The air, even here, was thick with heat, the waters seeming thick and sluggish with it this close to shore. All slow, faintly gleaming trails of green and blue amidst the grey.

"Don't search for a particular thing." Tris's voice was faint, caught in the small rill of cool air that blew past his cheek. "For now, just cast your mind _out_. Use the waves, if you like. They can pull you out..."

 

_"I can't work it **out**." Pareskeve, curled up on the roof of Discipline cottage, alone and small. Her eyes were hot, her voice scratchy and strained, and she pushed the small bundle of papers she was holding away from her as if they burned. They fluttered and scattered--of course they'd do that, Niko thought. You have to be gentle with them--but his breath caught as she, rather than trying to catch them up again, seemed to crumple. He was there, but not there, and saw with unseen eyes as the girl burst into small, painful tears. _

__

_One of the papers flew up, then. Obscuring her and pressed flat to his sight, as if he stood behind a window. On it, he saw letters, drawn with appalling penmanship and obvious care._

"Find anything?"

Niko blinked. Swallowed. His throat was tight and his tongue thick in his mouth. 

"I...nothing in the future."

"But something. There _was_ something."

He told her. He felt like the old soothsayers in traveller's tales, telling her--as if he feared a whipping for speaking words that were trivial, but true. Instead, Tris only shook her head, smiling.

"I think," she said, "That your gift lies in lost things."

 

#

Night noises woke Paraskeve. Not creaking or bird calls or the rasp of leaves against Discipline's windows, but the other sort. Crying, hard-and-muffled, full of clenched teeth and snot and pain. It was the sort of crying where people punched things, where some people shook and shook with it, like a fever or a fear. Mire crying.

Nightmare noise.

Walking across to Niko's room, feet quiet on the old mix of rug and wood, she had to stop several times and remember that Niko was the _keep out_ boy--fierce and solitary and probably angry at the very thought of someone hearing him. Nightmares, she could almost hear him think, were for people like Kiam.People like Paras.  Not for him. Not for his learning and the year he had on everyone else. _He_ was no screaming boy.

But he sounded frightened, now.

Biting her lip, Paras stepped inside.

Niko was tangled in his sheets-- his straight, thick hair smeared across his brow; his whole body left clenched and hard by the dream inside it. He didn't even flinch as she sat on the bed. She was invisible, sitting there, Should she wake him? No. Not too fast. She remembered drunken sleepwalkers from the family troupe, turning and smashing the people who tried to lead them back to bed. And it was dark in here. Too dark for a sudden wakening. Her own eyes, still more used to night-guarding than close stitch work, did not need a candle.

 _And all of his look burnt down._ She sighed, straining to see, straining to filter out his noises and cries and the fear in the room. It was still an empty place--all books and bare windows. Her embroidery lay abandoned by his desk, rumpled and sad.

Barely breathing, she stood and walked to it, feeling the cambric and silk cool and familiar against her fingers. Even with her eyes, there wasn't enough light to see the design, but she did not need it.

And Niko didn't, either.

Working by touch--and, she now knew, a little whisper of the magic Sandry had shown her--she unpicked three of the longest, strongest lengths of thread. Simple colours, splendidly dyed. Blue, and red, and grey. Their ends were ragged, and they were all-over kinks, but she let the rest of the work slide out of her hands as she drew them out.

 _Silk_ , Sandry had said, _loves you._

Well, if it loved her, than perhaps it might take light for her. The little traces of light that were in any room, no matter how dark, so long as there was a window and eyes to see. For her, if she just asked with all her best manners--if she only coaxed\--the silver might glow with moonlight; the red with the downstairs torchlights that still came up, just faintly, through cracks in the floor; the blue with everything that lay between their shadows.

 

#

Niko Smythe woke slowly, eyes sore and throat worse, his head full of pasts people wanted to forget, and presents that could hardly be lived through. And waves. All of it, cut with the sound of waves and Tris's voice--not telling him to try, this time, but to stop. To just _stop_ , because there was no use to him anyway. Unknown futures would turn into dying presents and dead pasts, no matter what he did.

But there was a warm weight against his legs, and the room was full of silver light.A girl was sitting on his bed.

"Um--Paras?"

"Yeah." The glow in the room seemed to come from her hands. It threw her shock of curls into sharp relief--caught the scrawniness of her face and arms. "Didn't want to wake you up too fast. People do crazy things with nightmares." She shrugged, still working. "It makes sense that mages would be worse. Even little ones like us."

"But you..." _Are confusing!_ "Wanted me to wake up?"

"You were having a nightmare." She said this easily, as if it wasn't a bad thing to be heard crying at eleven--which was almost a man's age in some countries. His father had already been working at eleven.

Niko sniffed, trying to sit up. Trying for dignity. "And you're making me a _nightlight_?"

Paras only shrugged.

" _How?_

This made her smile. "Magic," she said, in an odd, scratched-up mix of pride and amusement. "What else? What were you dreaming of? It helps to talk, sometimes."

"Magic," said Niko. "What else."

Paras swallowed. "Well," she said. "I'll leave you alone once I work out how to tie this off."

"--don't. I mean...please. Paras. Please don't tell the others?"

A laugh, now. Quick and not, though he bristled, mean-spirited. "Not a word," she said. "I promise."

"I was...I was rude to you earlier." He said. "I'm often rude to you. I'm afraid you make it easy. And _that's_ rude, too, but it's true. You're one of the strangest people I've ever met and so--so--"

"--I really don't want to know," Paras said, eyes fixed on her braiding. " _Really_."

"I think I can teach you to read," he said, diffidently. "That is, if you want."

 

 


End file.
